Thank you so much for all the love, care, support, and kindness you have showered our family with this past year. Even before we first arrived in the field back in May of 2022, you faithfully supported our family through your prayers and generous giving. We can’t believe it has been nearly a year and a half since arriving in Gorham, NY! Thus far, we have been able to cover the epistle of 1 John verse by verse as a church as our first sermon series. John the Beloved’s letter was filled with numerous biblical truths relevant to our walk with Jesus Christ. Currently, we are studying and mining the amazing treasures contained in the Gospel of Luke.

During our Sunday School hour, we completed our study on Daniel and are now embarking on the massive journey of expositing the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. We are in the process of establishing a children’s Sunday School class, which will coincide with our current adult class. 

Additionally, we are also in the process of creating and facilitating two new small groups. Mercy is currently planning a Women’s small group which is expected to meet during the week. I am planning a small group that will likely meet after Sunday morning worship. 

During this past year and a half, we hosted plenty of great community events at Bethel Baptist Church including the Resurrection Sunday Brunch event, Harvest Dinner, Ladies Night Out, Father’s Day Luncheon, and the Village Missions 75th Anniversary event (photo on left)), just to name a few. An upcoming outreach opportunity is the Reformation Day event, where we will pass out gospel tracts on October 31st from the church parking lot. The two Gospel tracts we will be distributing are The Best Treat Tract by Child Evangelism Fellowship and The Biggest Story Tract by Crossway. We look forward to planning more community events in the future.

This past June, I was invited back to participate in a second debate with an Eastern Orthodox priest. This time the theological subject was Mariology. The debate was broadcast on the  Faith Unaltered YouTube channel. A link to the debate can be found here along with the first debate I had on the subject of icons. Please keep me in your prayers as I prepare for a multi-video teaching series about Eastern Orthodoxy and how core doctrines in this church conflict with the pure Gospel message as found in the Word of God.

Please keep our family in your prayers as we continue to serve and reach those in our community seeking true hope. That true hope can only be found in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you so much to our devoted ministry partners for allowing us to serve our Lord in this field! We are blessed to serve at Bethel Baptist Church to keep the light of the Lord shining in this rural community.

To God be all the Glory!!

Watch the latest message in the sermon series on the Gospel of Luke,

"Calling All Wretched Sinners" (Luke 5:27–32), by Pastor Sam.

For an archive of past sermons please click here.

Listen to "Expositing the Word with Samuel Farag" on your favorite podcast provider:

https://expositingtheword.buzzsprout.com/

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us." - 1 John 5:14

Send us your prayer requests here:

samuelfarag@expositingtheword.org

To learn more about Village Missions and how they are helping country churches thrive all across North America please visit: https://villagemissions.org/